There are many people on both sides of the debate about whether ‘organic’ really makes a difference when buying groceries. Some say that there aren’t enough chemicals in the food to make a difference, some say that it makes a big difference. The question is: what does the science show? Below are the facts as shown by their corresponding study.

1. Organic Diets have been shown to increase the health of rats. Source

4. In organically grown produce “the risk of diseases caused by contaminated food is significantly reduced” and “it can be concluded that organically produced plant derived food products have a higher nutritional value” Source

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to studies about organic produce, organic meats and dairy. The fact is: God is smarter than us. God didn’t make the food wrong, therefore we shouldn’t tamper with it. When possible, eat organic. My general rule for food is: given a choice, I pick the food that is more like how God made it, and less like what man has perverted it into.

I just saw this advertisement the other day. THE TACO BELL DIET??? Are you kidding me? The first thing to consider is the source: Taco Bell. Fast food is fast food, no matter what. That is never going to change. There are some fast food places that are better than others, but whenever you exchange quality for convenience, you always lose. They even say on the website that the results are “not typical”. That is because most people who go on a diet but “don’t want to give up their fast food” DON’T LOSE WEIGHT. Gee, wonder why. I’ll tell you this, if you want to lose weight, you’re going to have to give up the convenience. Fast food makes you fat, simple as that. Do I eat fast food? Yes, occasionally, but I don’t expect to get healthy, sometimes convenience is the only option. But that still limits me to a couple times per month, and I always try to make the best decision I can.

My second problem is the approach. Apparently Taco Bell has a couple things on the menu that aren’t as fattening. The items are lower in calories and lower in fat. Here’s the problem: drop the calories, drop the fat, drop your metabolism, and get fatter in the long run. Low calorie diets only work for the short term, and after you stop (which we all do) you end up even bigger than before. On top of that the low fat craze has never worked, take a look around, we tried it. Your diet is supposed to fuel you, and that can’t work on a low calorie diet. You end up putting more stress on your body. The idea isn’t to eat less, but to eat more of the right things, and less of the wrong things. This often is an overall increase in caloric intake for my clients.

The best example I have of this is a client that I had last summer. She had stopped losing weight, and I asked her if she’d been eating. She told me that because of the heat she hadn’t been very hungry (we’d just gone through our first heat wave). I told her to make sure she ate more PROTEIN, and the very next week she lost 3 lb. That’s the way the body is supposed to work.

Lastly lets take a closer look at her results. Over 2 years she lost 54 lb, a good achievement. But that is only about half a pound per week. It is unlikely that Taco Bell was the cause of that. Most of my clients will lose at least 10 pounds in the first month with me. There are lots of other things that could have caused that 1/2 pound loss per week. Maybe she started walking, or exercising, or eating more protein, or something else. It is most likely the fact that Taco Bell is capitalizing on something that they weren’t the cause of.

The fact is the Taco Bell diet is as much a quack as the Cookie Diet, or the South Beach Diet. If you want to lose weight you need to learn how to properly fuel your body, not deprive it. God bless, and good luck on everyone’s New Years Resolutions.

A new article was published today. The United States have changed their guidelines on when to start routine mammograms from 40 to 50. Now, I am all for saving peoples lives, both preventing and helping people survive breast cancer. My grandmother died of breast cancer about 10 years ago. However the question is whether mammography is any good at all. There are many questions around the use of mammography. There are rumors that it causes more false-positives than should be tolerated, so people are being treated for cancer they don’t have. Also there are many who believe that exposing the breasts to radiation over and over again is a potential cause for breast cancer. The facts remain though that breast cancer rates continue to rise, and deaths from breast cancer continue to rise. It is failing. There are better screens for breast cancer than mammography and you don’t have to wait till your 50 for it. Thermography has shown to be very accurate at not only detecting but predicting breast cancer. Check out these videos from my buddy Sean on Breast Thermography. Just something to think about.

Episode 4 of the Wellness Resurgence is up. This week’s topic is related to the documentary Food Inc. which poses the question: do you know where YOUR food comes from? Many people do not know where their food comes from, or the process that gets it from the ground to your table. Many don’t know the farmer who grows their food (if there is a farmer). This is not the way things are supposed to be. This documentary will change the way you look at food, for the better. Please buy this movie and show it to your friends.